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THB[CIVIL WAR] Executed Deserters & Final CSA Efforts
![[CIVIL WAR] Executed Deserters & Final CSA Efforts](https://s1.img.bidsquare.com/item/xl/3560/35606375.jpeg?t=1VW4NV)
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About Auction
LiveApr 25, 2026
Featuring rare artifacts, documents, ephemera, photography, and weaponry relating to the American Civil War. Fleischer's Auctions info@fleischersauctions.com
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- Lot Description
Autograph letter signed by Private Gideon Leander Miller (1845-1907), 33rd North Carolina Infantry, Co. H, written to his older sister, Antoinette Sophia Miller Beckel (1828-1891). Petersburg, Virginia, 28 March 1865. 4 pages, 5 3/4 x 9 in., with original cover.
Miller was conscripted into Co. H of the 33rd North Carolina on July 1, 1862, while his brother-in-law, Antoinette's husband, George Hiram Beckel (1829-1862), served in Co. G of the same regiment. Miller frequently mentions their daughter, Sarah, and also details the final and desperate attempts by Confederate forces to beat back the advancing Union army at Petersburg: "At noon, our regiment came back to camp [from the battlefield] but they had not been here but a few minutes before the Yankees charged in front of our old camp where we have been all the winter and before our Brigade could get out they had took our whole skirmish line and a great many prisoners." Grimly, he also reports that he has seen many deserters executed since the battle of Gettysburg, scenes he could not avoid as the regimental band was always called upon to play the dead march as they escorted the deserters to the stakes where they were lashed and subsequently shot by the firing squad. As he writes to Antoinette, "I don't mind it much more to see a man killed...for I have seen so many killed that it is nothing new anymore. I have seen between twenty & twenty-five men shot at the stake since the Gettysburg fight and had to march in front of them...and play the dead march."
Unfortunately, Beckel died of pneumonia on December 24, 1862. Miller survived the war, surrendering with his regiment at Appomattox on April 9, 1865. Afterward, he and his brother, John Sylvester Miller, formed a partnership producing windows, sashes, blinds, doors, and other woodwork.
[Civil War, Union, Confederate] [Manuscripts, Documents, Letters, Ephemera, Signatures, Autographs]
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